The Task and Other Poems [21]
to draw Conclusions retrograde, and mad mistake: But if His Word once teach us, shoot a ray Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal Truths undiscerned but by that holy light, Then all is plain. Philosophy, baptised In the pure fountain of eternal love, Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she sees As meant to indicate a God to man, Gives HIM His praise, and forfeits not her own. Learning has borne such fruit in other days On all her branches. Piety has found Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews. Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage! Sagacious reader of the works of God, And in His Word sagacious. Such too thine, Milton, whose genius had angelic wings, And fed on manna. And such thine, in whom Our British Themis gloried with just cause, Immortal Hale! for deep discernment praised, And sound integrity not more, than famed For sanctity of manners undefiled.
All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades Like the fair flower dishevelled in the wind; Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream; The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him, ignoble graves. Nothing is proof against the general curse Of vanity, that seizes all below. The only amaranthine flower on earth Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth. But what is truth? 'twas Pilate's question put To truth itself, that deigned him no reply. And wherefore? will not God impart His light To them that ask it?--Freely--'tis His joy, His glory, and His nature to impart. But to the proud, uncandid, insincere, Or negligent inquirer, not a spark. What's that which brings contempt upon a book And him that writes it, though the style be neat, The method clear, and argument exact? That makes a minister in holy things The joy of many, and the dread of more, His name a theme for praise and for reproach?-- That, while it gives us worth in God's account, Depreciates and undoes us in our own? What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, That learning is too proud to gather up, But which the poor and the despised of all Seek and obtain, and often find unsought? Tell me, and I will tell thee what is truth.
Oh, friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domestic life in rural leisure passed! Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets, Though many boast thy favours, and affect To understand and choose thee for their own. But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss, Even as his first progenitor, and quits, Though placed in paradise, for earth has still Some traces of her youthful beauty left, Substantial happiness for transient joy. Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurse The growing seeds of wisdom; that suggest, By every pleasing image they present, Reflections such as meliorate the heart, Compose the passions, and exalt the mind; Scenes such as these, 'tis his supreme delight To fill with riot and defile with blood. Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutes We persecute, annihilate the tribes That draw the sportsman over hill and dale Fearless, and rapt away from all his cares; Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again, Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye; Could pageantry, and dance, and feast, and song Be quelled in all our summer months' retreats; How many self-deluded nymphs and swains, Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves, Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen, And crowd the roads, impatient for the town! They love the country, and none else, who seek For their own sake its silence and its shade; Delights which who would leave, that has a heart Susceptible of pity, or a mind Cultured and capable of sober thought, For all the savage din of the swift pack, And clamours of the field? Detested sport, That owes its pleasures to another's pain, That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued With eloquence, that agonies inspire, Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs! Vain tears, alas! and sighs that never find A corresponding tone in jovial souls. Well--one at least is safe.
All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades Like the fair flower dishevelled in the wind; Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream; The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him, ignoble graves. Nothing is proof against the general curse Of vanity, that seizes all below. The only amaranthine flower on earth Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth. But what is truth? 'twas Pilate's question put To truth itself, that deigned him no reply. And wherefore? will not God impart His light To them that ask it?--Freely--'tis His joy, His glory, and His nature to impart. But to the proud, uncandid, insincere, Or negligent inquirer, not a spark. What's that which brings contempt upon a book And him that writes it, though the style be neat, The method clear, and argument exact? That makes a minister in holy things The joy of many, and the dread of more, His name a theme for praise and for reproach?-- That, while it gives us worth in God's account, Depreciates and undoes us in our own? What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, That learning is too proud to gather up, But which the poor and the despised of all Seek and obtain, and often find unsought? Tell me, and I will tell thee what is truth.
Oh, friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domestic life in rural leisure passed! Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets, Though many boast thy favours, and affect To understand and choose thee for their own. But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss, Even as his first progenitor, and quits, Though placed in paradise, for earth has still Some traces of her youthful beauty left, Substantial happiness for transient joy. Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurse The growing seeds of wisdom; that suggest, By every pleasing image they present, Reflections such as meliorate the heart, Compose the passions, and exalt the mind; Scenes such as these, 'tis his supreme delight To fill with riot and defile with blood. Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutes We persecute, annihilate the tribes That draw the sportsman over hill and dale Fearless, and rapt away from all his cares; Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again, Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye; Could pageantry, and dance, and feast, and song Be quelled in all our summer months' retreats; How many self-deluded nymphs and swains, Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves, Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen, And crowd the roads, impatient for the town! They love the country, and none else, who seek For their own sake its silence and its shade; Delights which who would leave, that has a heart Susceptible of pity, or a mind Cultured and capable of sober thought, For all the savage din of the swift pack, And clamours of the field? Detested sport, That owes its pleasures to another's pain, That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued With eloquence, that agonies inspire, Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs! Vain tears, alas! and sighs that never find A corresponding tone in jovial souls. Well--one at least is safe.